Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center (The Clemente)
107 Suffolk St, Room #406, NYC
July 2018–January 2019
EMBAJADA 4062018 ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
JORGE GONZALEZ
July - September 21, 2018
González will be extending on Ayacabo Guarocoel, an installation that progresses through a series of exchanges, based on readings, conversations, and workshops, currently included in Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art, on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The works proposed by González for Artists Alliance, Inc. at The Clemente relate to his interest in openwork fabric, a traditional needlework of Puerto Rico. For the past months González has worked collectively in learning and employing this technique, through an exercise of translating indigenous motifs from Taíno ceremonial artifacts. For his work in residency, an extension from this practice will consider Clemente Soto Velez’ proposition for Spanish Grammar (phonetic method.)
Jorge González received his BFA from the Puerto Rico School of Visual Arts in 2006. In 2012, he was invited to La Practica, a nine-month residency program at the San Juan based non-profit Beta-Local and has worked with them since to forge pedagogical connections with the public university system of Puerto Rico. In 2015, as part of Beta Local’s residency at ISCP, González was invited to New York for a presentation on his practice. González has exhibited internationally including Art Rio (2012) curated by Pablo Leon de la Barra and Julieta González, el Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (2014), Die Ecke (2015) in Chile, Kunsthalle Osnabruek, Germany (2015), and SITELines, the 2016 SITE Santa Fe Biennial. Last year González participated in the Spring 2017 Davidoff Residency Program in Bogota and was included in documenta, Kassel 14 in a program hosted by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) entitled Under the Mango Tree: Ulterior Sites of Learning, a gathering and publication that addressed new sites for learning. Gonzalez is currently included in the group show Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art curated by Marcela Guerrero at the Whitney Museum through September 30.
NATALIA VIERA
September 24 - October 26, 2018
For the residency, Natalia Viera will work with the cultural and historic archives of Puerto Rican culture and heritage between the 70-80's at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. The Center, located in upper Manhattan is a research institute dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States and that produces and disseminates relevant interdisciplinary research.
Independent curator based in New York and received her MA in Curatorial Studies from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) this past spring. She is the art program and research assistant at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College, New York. Viera is also currently the curatorial and publications fellow at the Socrates Sculpture Park for Virginia Overton's exhibition Built. She has worked in various cultural institutions from the private, nonprofit and government sector in New York City, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. Her curatorial practice addresses contemporary social issues focused on Latin American, Caribbean and Hispanic communities. She was the assistant curator for the 4th Poly/Graphic Triennial of Latin America and the Caribbean in Puerto Rico where she worked directly with curators Gerardo Mosquera, co-founder of the Havana Biennial; and Chilean curator, Alexia Tala. Her recent projects included Isla Imaginaria, an exhibition that questioned notions of paradise, landscape and the idea of progress in the island of Puerto Rico. Other projects included leading the workshop "Breaking and Unveiling the Immigration Glossary of Severalty" with the collective Se Habla Español at the 8th Floor gallery.
CRISTINE BRACHE
October 28 - November 28, 2018
For her residency, Cristine Brache will create a series of portrait studies of her grandmother, Juliana, in an effort to redress the systemic cultural erasure often experienced generationally by diasporas. This body of work serves to identify and place cultural characteristics specific to the Caribbean in contemporary art discourse.
Cristine Brache (b.1984, Miami) is an artist and writer of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent living and working in Toronto. She holds an MFA in Fine Art Media from the Slade School of Fine Art (London, UK). Recent exhibitions include FIERMAN, New York; Team Gallery, New York; MOCA, Miami; Bow Arts, London; The Museum of the Moving Image, New York; Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Paris; and Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover. Her poetry has been published in Publishing Genius, New York Tyrant, Fanzine, Apogee, and E Ratio Postmodern Poetry Journal, among others. Writing about her work has appeared in The New Yorker, and Cordite Poetry Review.
REBECCA ADORNO
December 2018
By means of technology, sound and different materials, Adorno’s installations explore various topics, from the convergence of sound and space awareness to the parallels between aesthetics of beauty and lethality: signs and poetic contents that arise when catastrophic events, such as climate change or torture, show flashes of sublime beauty. During her residency at Clemente, Adorno will continue to explore these themes.
Rebecca Adorno is a New York-based artist born and raised in Puerto Rico. As an undergrad student Adorno attempted to study Electrical Engineering, but after three years in the program she realized that she was bored due to the lack of hands on experience, therefore she made a major switch in concentrations to Fine Arts in the University of Puerto Rico. There, she was encouraged to mix her Engineering knowledge with her conceptual approach to create art. In 2008 she moved to New York City to pursue an MFA in Computer Arts from the School of Visual Arts, where she graduated with honors in 2010. Her work has been shown in New York, Montreal, Puerto Rico and is part of the Museum of Ponce’s permanent collection.